What does Huhtala do? (Part One)

Now and then someone asks me what I do for work. Depending on my mood, I suppose, I answer with varying degrees of substance and detail: “I’m a conservationist.” “I type on plastic keys and talk on the phone a lot.” “I’m a lobbyist for fish – the slimiest kind.” “I work to influence fisheries management to benefit both the marine environment and fishing communities.”

So you see, my answers vary from cheeky to (attempted) clever to canned (no fish pun intended). I’m thinking that I could do better than that.

Okay, my title is Senior Policy Director for the Pacific Marine Conservation Council (PMCC). That’s a start. I could begin to describe my job by talking about PMCC. This is a ten-year-old non-profit organization that, first off is not part of the government. In fact it was formed because a small group of conservation-minded fishermen believed that the government was messing up the management of West Coast fisheries. It was.

At first there were scenes in living rooms around a bottle of Tequila when said fishermen would spew elegant criticism and advice for fishery managers while a fisherman’s wife wrote it down. At least that’s what I’ve been told. They’d send letters to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), the advisory body that essentially manages West Coast ocean fisheries, with the (rubber?) stamp of approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

I sincerely hope that you’re not experiencing acronym overload. In my profession it gets worse, I guess because there are so many advisory committees to advisory bodies… Oh, whatever, I’ll try to restrain my acronym reliance.

The West Coast rockfish were tanking. And the soon-to-be-PMCC fishermen knew it. But why? These rockfish (actually dozens of species of the genus Sebastes, marketed as Pacific red snapper) were a mainstay of ocean fisheries along our coast. And one after another they were disappearing/hiding/migrating/vacationing, well there just weren’t as many around. The fishermen had some ideas, having watched as the Russian fishing fleet decimated the Pacific Ocean Perch (not a perch at all, but a rockfish), before getting banned from the U.S. exclusive economic zone in the late 1970s. But who would listen to Tequila swilling (?) fishermen?

The fishermen decided to seek out scientists who had some understanding of the West Coast rockfish. They figured that between the scientists and the fishermen solutions might emerge that could bring fisheries management along.

A small group of private foundations with an interest in solving environmental problems were intrigued by this unusual group emerging from the harbors and campuses. They kicked in some money and PMCC was born. Before long the fledgling organization was in partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium to sponsor a conference that brought together fishermen, scientists, managers and environmentalists to focus on what it would take to bring back the depleted rockfish populations – and sustain them for the future.

Well, that’s enough for now. I haven’t even made it to the year 2000, when I joined PMCC as their Rockfish Campaign Coordinator. That’ll be next.